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Foreign involvement in the Yemeni Civil War
:Split article, delete new subject. Common tactic. Originally titled, "NATO involvement in the Yemeni Civil War" to make it easier to delete. The name change, during the middle of the AfD discussion, makes both article and AfD harder to find, and changes the nature of votes before the change. thumb|400px|US Secretary of Defense [[Wikipedia:Ashton Carter with Saudi Defense Minister Wikipedia:Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, Pentagon, 13 May 2015]] During the Yemeni civil war, Saudi Arabia led an Arab coalition and a military intervention, leading a coalition of nine countries from West Asia and Wikipedia:Africa, in response to calls from the internationally recognized pro-Saudi president of Yemen Wikipedia:Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi for military support after he was ousted by the Wikipedia:Houthi movement due to economic and political grievances, and fled to Saudi Arabia. NATO powers such as the United Kingdom and the United States support the Wikipedia:Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen primarily through arms sales and technical assistance. France had also made recent military sales to Saudi Arabia. MSF emergency coordinator Karline Kleijer called the US, France and the UK part of the Saudi-led coalition, which imposed the weapons embargo and blocked all ships from entering Yemen with supplies. thumb|400px|Donald J. Trump welcomes the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman to a breakfast Saturday, June 29, 2019, at the Imperial Hotel Osaka in Osaka, Japan Rights groups have criticized the countries for supplying arms, and accuse the coalition of using Wikipedia:cluster munitions, which are banned in most countries. Oxfam pointed out that Germany, Iran, and Russia have also reportedly sold arms to the conflicting forces. Tariq Riebl, head of programmes in Yemen for Oxfam, said, "it's difficult to argue that a weapon sold to Saudi Arabia would not in some way be used in Yemen," or "if it's not used in Yemen it enables the country to use other weapons in Yemen." Amnesty International urged the US and the UK to stop supplying arms to Saudi Arabia and to the Saudi-led coalition. On 28 August 2018, a report for the Wikipedia:UN Human Rights Council alleged that both sides in the war may have committed war crimes. It called on the international community, including the Wikipedia:United States and Wikipedia:United Kingdom to stop "providing arms that could be used in the conflict in Yemen". On August 3, 2019, a United Nations report said the US, UK and France may be complicit in committing war crimes in Yemen by selling weapons and providing support to the Saudi-led coalition which is using the deliberate starvation of civilians as a tactic of warfare. United States thumb|400px||Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis meets with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 19th April 2017 :See also: Wikipedia:2017 United States–Saudi Arabia arms deal In March 2015, President Wikipedia:Barack Obama declared that he had authorized US forces to provide logistical and intelligence support to the Saudis in their military intervention in Yemen, establishing a "Joint Planning Cell" with Saudi Arabia. This includes aerial refueling permitting coalition aircraft more loitering time over Yemen, and permitting some coalition members to home base aircraft rather than relocate them to Saudi Arabia. US supported the intervention by "providing intelligence sharing, targeting assistance, advisory and logistical support to the military intervention", according to the state department."U.S. Backs Saudi-Led Yemeni Bombing With Logistics, Spying". Wikipedia:Bloomberg News. 26 March 2015. In April 2015, the US expanded its intelligence-sharing with the coalition."Yemen conflict: US boosts arms supplies for Saudi-led coalition". Wikipedia:BBC News. 8 April 2015. Deputy Secretary of State Wikipedia:Tony Blinken said: "As part of that effort, we have expedited weapons deliveries, we have increased our intelligence sharing, and we have established a joint coordination planning cell in the Saudi operation centre.""US steps up arms for Saudi campaign in Yemen". Wikipedia:Al Jazeera. 8 April 2015. Wikipedia:Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that evidence shows that SA had been using US-supplied cluster bombs outlawed in much of the world."Yemen: Saudi Arabia used cluster bombs, rights groups says". Wikipedia:BBC News. 3 May 2015. According to Wikipedia:Anthony Cordesman, the US government does not want "the strategic Wikipedia:Bab-el-Mandeb strait" to be threatened. According to press reporting, many in US SOCOM reportedly favor Houthis, as they have been effective at combating al-Qaeda and recently Wikipedia:ISIL, "something that hundreds of US drone strikes and large numbers of advisers to Yemen's military had failed to accomplish". According to a senior CENTCOM commander, "the reason the Saudis didn't inform us of their plans is because they knew we would have told them exactly what we think—that it was a bad idea." As Yemen expert Michael Horton puts it, the US had been "Iran's air force in Iraq", and "al-Qaeda's air force in Yemen". According to an Wikipedia:Al Jazeera report, one reason for US support may be the diplomatic logic of tamping down SA's opposition to the Iranian nuclear deal by backing them. Another is the view among some US military commanders that countering Iran took strategic priority over combating Al-Qaeda and ISIL. Senator Wikipedia:John McCain, the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, praised the intervention, saying, "The prospect of radical groups like Iranian-backed Houthi militants" was "more than Arab allies could withstand." thumb|The US Navy has actively participated in the [[Wikipedia:Blockade of Yemen|Saudi-led naval blockade,"U.S. carrier moving off coast of Yemen to block Iranian arms shipments". USA Today. 20 April 2015. which humanitarian organizations argue has been the main contributing factor to the outbreak of famine in Yemen. ]] On 30 June an HRW report stated that US-made bombs were being used in attacks indiscriminately targeting civilians and violating the laws of war. The report photographed "the remnants of an MK-83 air-dropped 1,000-pound bomb made in the US". US Representative Wikipedia:Ted Lieu has been publicly raising concerns over US support for Saudi-led war in Yemen. In March 2016, he sent a letter to Secretary of State Wikipedia:John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Wikipedia:Ash Carter. He wrote in the letter that the "apparent indiscriminate airstrikes on civilian targets in Yemen seem to suggest that either the coalition is grossly negligent in its targeting or is intentionally targeting innocent civilians". Following American concern about civilian casualties in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, the US military involvement is mostly ineffective due to coalition's airstrikes targeting civilian and hospitals. In 2015 the United States deployed The Green Berets to assist the Saudi Arabian military with missile interception. In September 2016, Senators Wikipedia:Rand Paul and Chris Murphy worked to prevent the proposed sale of $1.15 billion in arms from the US to Saudi Arabia. The US Senate voted 71 to 27 against the Murphy–Paul resolution to block the US–Saudi arms deal. Wikipedia:CNN's Wikipedia:Wolf Blitzer questioned Senator Paul's reasoning during an interview, stating that cutting off military aid would hurt the profits of the arms industry. "So for you this is a moral issue," he told Senator Paul on CNN. "Because you know, there's a lot of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense contractors stop selling war planes, other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there's going to be a significant loss of jobs, of revenue here in the United States. That's secondary from your standpoint?""Wolf Blitzer Is Worried Defense Contractors Will Lose Jobs if U.S. Stops Arming Saudi Arabia" Wikipedia:The Intercept, 9 September 2016 Following the vote, Senate Majority Leader Wikipedia:Mitch McConnell said: "I think it's important to the United States to maintain as good a relationship with Saudi Arabia as possible.""US Senate refuses to block Saudi Arabia arms sale". Wikipedia:Deutsche Welle. 29 September 2016. thumb|President [[Wikipedia:Barack Obama, CIA Director John Brennan, King Salman and Prince Mohammad at the GCC-US Summit in Riyadh on 21 April 2016]] A March 2016 Human Rights Watch report states that US participation in specific military operations, such as selecting targets and aerial refueling during Saudi air raids "may make US forces jointly responsible for laws-of-war violations by coalition forces"."Yemen: Embargo Arms to Saudi Arabia" Wikipedia:Human Rights Watch, 21 March 2106 In September The Guardian reported that one in three bombing raids hit civilian sites."One in three Saudi air raids on Yemen hit civilian sites, data shows" Wikipedia:The Guardian, 16 September 2016 thumb|US Secretary of Defense [[Wikipedia:James Mattis with King Wikipedia:Salman of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, 19 April 2017]] US government lawyers have considered whether the United States is legally a "Wikipedia:co-belligerent" in the conflict, but had not reached a conclusion as of September 2016. Such a finding would oblige the US to investigate allegations of Wikipedia:war crimes by the Saudi coalition, and US military personnel could be subject to prosecution. On 13 October 2016, fired Tomahawk missiles at Houthi-controlled radar sites "in the Dhubab district of Taiz province, a remote area overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Straight known for fishing and smuggling." In 2017 the United States sent a total of $599,099,937 of foreign aid to Yemen despite being a supporter of the Saudi led military intervention. In January 2017, Secretary of State nominee Wikipedia:Rex Tillerson voiced support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen."Rex Tillerson Wants to Provide Saudi Arabia With More Help to Bomb Yemen". Wikipedia:The Intercept. 12 January 2017. US Secretary of Defense Wikipedia:James Mattis asked President Wikipedia:Donald Trump to remove restrictions on US military support for Saudi Arabia. In February 2017, Mattis wanted to intercept and board an Iranian ship in the Wikipedia:Arabian Sea to look for contraband weapons, which would have constituted an "act of war". In April 2017, Wikipedia:Justin Amash, Walter Jones and other members of Congress criticized US involvement in Saudi Arabian military campaign in Yemen, highlighting that Al Qaeda in Yemen "has emerged as a de facto ally of the Saudi-led militaries with whom Trump administration aims to partner more closely". On 13 November 2017, the Wikipedia:United States House of Representatives passed a resolution stating the US involvement in Yemen un-authorized under legislation passed by Congress to fight terrorism. In November 2017, US Senator Chris Murphy accused the United States of complicity in Yemen's humanitarian catastrophe."Congress Votes to Say It Hasn't Authorized War in Yemen, Yet War in Yemen Goes On". The Intercept. 14 November 2017. In December 2017, the Trump administration urged restraint in the Saudi military action in Yemen, as well as in Qatar and Lebanon.US to Saudis: Temper actions on Yemen, Qatar, Lebanon; Al Jazeera; 8 December 2017; http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/tillerson-saudis-measured-yemen-action-171208151146607.html US bombs used by the coalition have killed Yemeni civilians throughout 2018, including a Wikipedia:Lockheed Martin made bomb that struck a school bus in August, killing 51 people. In the wake of Jamal Khashoggi's murder in October 2018, the US Secretary of State Wikipedia:Mike Pompeo and the US Secretary of Defense Wikipedia:James Mattis have called for a ceasefire in Yemen within 30 days followed by UN-initiated peace talks. Pompeo has asked Saudi Arabia and the UAE to stop their airstrikes on populated areas in Yemen. President of the Wikipedia:International Rescue Committee Wikipedia:David Miliband called the US announcement as "the most significant breakthrough in the war in Yemen for four years". The US continues its support of the Saudi-led intervention with weapons sales and intelligence sharing. On 10 November 2018, the US announced it would no longer refuel coalition aircraft operating over Yemen. On 13 December, the US Senate voted to end US military assistance to Saudi Arabia over alleged war crimes in Yemen. thumb|President [[Wikipedia:Donald Trump with Saudi Crown Prince Wikipedia:Mohammad bin Salman, 28 June 2019]] Following the 56-to-41 vote in the US Senate to invoke the War Powers Resolution and to end US military support to Saudi Arabia, Wikipedia:the Pentagon presented a bill of $331 million to Saudis and Emiratis for US' support in the Yemen Civil War. The bill was split between $36.8 million for fuel and $294.3 million for US flight hours. The Pentagon stated that Saudi Arabia has not made any payments since the beginning of the war. In April 2019, Trump vetoed a bipartisan bill which would have ended US support for the Saudi-led military intervention. With 53 votes instead of the 67 needed, the United States Senate failed to override the veto. The legal arguments and policies of the Obama administration were cited as justification for the veto. The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Wikipedia:Michael Mulroy stated that US support was limited to side-by-side coaching to mitigate civilian casualties and if the measure had passed it would do nothing to help the people of Yemen and may only increase civilian deaths. Mulroy supported the United Nation's peace talks and he pushed the international community to come together and chart a comprehensive way ahead for Yemen. Writing in Wikipedia:The Nation, Wikipedia:Mohamad Bazzi argued that Mulroy's defence of US support as necessary to limit civilian casualties was false, and that "Saudi leaders and their allies have ignored American entreaties to minimize civilian casualties since the war’s early days". Saudi Arabian coalition Wikipedia:Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen United Kingdom | style="vertical-align:bottom;"| 1,735 | style="vertical-align:bottom;"| 109 | style="vertical-align:bottom;"| 1,602 | style="vertical-align:bottom;"| 80 | style="vertical-align:bottom;"| 2,836 |- | style="border-top:#000 solid 0.15em;"| 2010 | style="border-top:#000 solid 0.15em;"| 2011 | style="border-top:#000 solid 0.15em;"| 2012 | style="border-top:#000 solid 0.15em;"| 2013 | style="border-top:#000 solid 0.15em;"| 2014 | style="border-top:#000 solid 0.15em;"| 2015* *Q1-Q3 only |} The UK is one of the largest suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia, and London immediately expressed strong support for the Saudi-led campaign. Six months into the bombing, Oxfam said the UK was "quietly fuelling the Yemen conflict and exacerbating one of the world's worst humanitarian crises" by keeping its arms pipeline to Saudi Arabia open; the Wikipedia:Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) agreed that "UK arms and UK cooperation have been central to the devastation of Yemen." In mid-September 2015, the deputy chief executive of Oxfam complained that the government even refused to reveal to Parliament the details of the 37 arms export licences it had granted for sales to Saudi Arabia since March that year. The attack on Yemen saw sales of UK bombs for 2015 increase from £9m to over £1bn in three months. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have shown that UK arms are being used on civilian targets. Furthermore, the UK government has been repeatedly accused of violating domestic, EU, and international law, in particular the Wikipedia:Arms Trade Treaty, by maintaining its flow of weapons to the Kingdom. Despite this, it was reported in November 2015 that the UK planned a number of high-level visits to Saudi Arabia over the following three to six months with the aim of securing major arms deals. In January 2016, it emerged that UK military advisors were assisting Saudi personnel in the selection of targets. On 2 February 2016, the Wikipedia:International Development Select Committee finally added its call for the UK to cease exporting arms to Saudi Arabia and to end its opposition to an independent international inquiry into the way the military campaign had been conducted thus far. The committee's call went unheeded; indeed, just weeks later, on the day the EU held a non-binding vote in favour of an arms embargo on the country because of its destructive bombing of Yemen, Prime Minister Wikipedia:David Cameron boasted about the "brilliant" arms, components, and other military technology that the UK would continue to sell to Saudi Arabia, Oman, and other Gulf states. thumb|Saudi Arabia's UK-supplied [[Wikipedia:Eurofighter Typhoons are playing a central role in Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. ]] Wikipedia:Angus Robertson, the SNP's Parliamentary Group Leader, said David Cameron should admit to British involvement in Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen: "Isn't it time for the Prime Minister to admit that Britain is effectively taking part in a war in Yemen that is costing thousands of civilians lives and he has not sought parliamentary approval to do this?""David Cameron accused of silently taking Britain into Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen". The Independent. 20 January 2016. A few months later, leading American security expert Wikipedia:Bruce Riedel noted: "If the United States and the United Kingdom, tonight, told King Salman Saudi Arabia 'this war has to end,' it would end tomorrow. The Royal Saudi Air Force cannot operate without American and British support." As well as supplying materiel and targeting support for the bombing of Yemen, the UK has assisted the coalition diplomatically. For example, the UK response, provided by Middle East Minister Wikipedia:Tobias Ellwood, to the leaked report of a UN panel in January 2016, which documented more than one hundred instances of coalition air strikes that had violated international law, was to say that the Saudis had made "mistakes" and claim that other cases may have been "fabricated" by the Houthis. Wikipedia:Theresa May succeeded David Cameron as prime minister in July 2016, but maintained her predecessor's policy because, she claimed, close ties with the Saudis "keep people on the streets of Britain safe". In September 2016, her foreign minister, Wikipedia:Boris Johnson, refused to block UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia, saying there remained no clear evidence of breaches of international humanitarian law by Saudi Arabia in the war in Yemen, and that it would be best for Saudi Arabia to investigate itself. Amid reports from Yemen of famine conditions and "emaciated children ... fighting for their lives", CAAT observed that the notion of self-investigation would rightly never pass muster if it were proposed for Russia's bombing in support of Assad in Syria. Indeed, in October 2016, Boris Johnson commended the notion of referring allegations of Russian and Russian-backed war crimes to the International Court of Justice. The previous month, Johnson had rejected a proposal for the UN Human Rights Council to conduct an inquiry into the war in Yemen. Furthermore, Britain blocked such an inquiry from taking place. thumb|UK Foreign Secretary [[Wikipedia:Boris Johnson participates in a meeting on Yemen with counterparts from the United States, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Oman, on 16 February 2017]] In October 2016, it emerged that the United Kingdom was continuing to provide instruction to pilots of the Wikipedia:Royal Saudi Air Force, both in the UK and in Saudi Arabia. Wikipedia:Andrew Mitchell, the former cabinet minister in David Cameron's government, stated that "Britain is complicit in creating" a famine in Yemen. On 24 March 2019, The British newspaper Wikipedia:The Mail on Sunday reported that some British soldiers have been involved in gun battles with, and been wounded by, Houthi fighters. According to the report at least five members of the SBS have been wounded. A SBS source told The Mail, "The guys are fighting in the inhospitable desert and mountainous terrain against highly committed and well-equipped Houthi rebels, The SBS's role is mainly training and mentoring but on occasions, they have found themselves in firefights and some British troops have been shot". The report also claims that British Special Forces are fighting on the same side as jihadists and militia which use child soldiers. After the report, The shadow foreign secretary Wikipedia:Emily Thornberry, questioned these allegations in the British parliament suggesting that the British forces may have been witnesses to war crimes, if the allegations were true. She claimed that as many as 40% of the soldiers in the Saudi coalition were children, a breach of international humanitarian law. In response, the UK Foreign Office minister Wikipedia:Mark Field called the allegations "very serious and well sourced" and promised to get to the bottom of these allegations. On 25 March 2019 Wikipedia:Mark Lancaster told the UK parliament that Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) was providing "engineering support" and "generic training" to Saudi Arabian military. According to Wikipedia:the Guardian News agency, more than 40 Saudi officers have been trained at prestigious British military colleges since the Saudi intervention in Yemen started. This officers mostly trained at Sandhurst, the Wikipedia:RAF’s school at Wikipedia:Cranwell and the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth since 2015. The MoD refused to state the earned money from the Saudi contracts, because it could influence Britain’s relations with the Saudis. Abdul-Malik Badreddin, The Houthi leader condemned the UK military cooperation and arms sales to Saudi military. According to a Wikipedia:Sky News analysis, The UK has sold at least £5.7bn worth of arms to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen since 2015. Priyanka Motaparthy, senior emergencies researcher at Wikipedia:Human Rights Watch, said: “These revelations confirm once again how the UK military is working hand in glove with the Saudis. France France is also a significant arms supplier to Saudi Arabia. It has supplied over 2 billion dollars including armoured vehicles, air defence systems, and aircraft subsystems. Reinventing Peace|access-date=2019-02-16}} France has also supplied the UAE with arms, despite the UAE and the militias it backs being implicated in war crimes and other serious violations. Private military involvement On 22 November 2015, Wikipedia:The New York Times reported the United Arab Emirates had contracted Wikipedia:Academi to deploy 450 Colombian, Panamanian, Salvadoran and Chilean Wikipedia:mercenaries to Yemen in October.Emily B. Hager and Wikipedia:Mark Mazzetti (26 November 2015), "Emirates Secretly Sends Colombian Mercenaries to Fight in Yemen", The New York Times On 9 December, Australian media reported an Australian mercenary commander was killed in Yemen alongside six Colombian nationals after Houthi fighters and Saleh army units attacked Saudi-led forces in the country's south-west. Iranian involvement? According to Michael Horton, an expert on Yemeni affairs, the notion that the Houthis are an Iranian proxy is "nonsense". According to American officials, Iran discouraged Houthi rebels from taking over the Yemeni capital in late 2014, casting further doubt on claims that the rebels were fighting a Wikipedia:proxy war on behalf of Iran. A spokeswoman for the Wikipedia:US National Security Council said that it remained the council's assessment that "Iran does not exert command and control over the Houthis in Yemen." See also Commons category|Operation Decisive Storm}}Portal|War}} * Wikipedia:List of modern conflicts in the Middle East * Wikipedia:Saudi Arabia and weapons of mass destruction * Wikipedia:Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict * Wikipedia:2017 Qatar diplomatic crisis * Wikipedia:Saudi-led intervention in Bahrain * Wikipedia:Famine in Yemen * Wikipedia:Airstrikes on hospitals in Yemen * Wikipedia:United Arab Emirates takeover of Socotra References Yemeni Civil War (2015)}} Arab Spring}} Category:2015 in Saudi Arabia * Category:2015 in Yemen Category:Aerial bombing operations and battles Category:Conflicts in 2015 Category:Conflicts in 2016 Category:Conflicts in 2017 Category:Conflicts in 2018 Category:Conflicts in 2019 Category:Gulf Cooperation Council Category:Iran–Saudi Arabia relations Category:Military operations involving Yemen Category:Military operations involving Saudi Arabia Category:Military operations involving Bahrain Category:Military operations involving Kuwait Category:Military operations involving Egypt Category:Military operations involving Jordan Category:Military operations involving Morocco Category:Military operations involving Qatar Category:Military operations involving Sudan Category:Military operations involving the United Arab Emirates Category:Military history of Yemen Category:Military history of Saudi Arabia Category:No-fly zone operations Category:Saudi Arabia–Yemen military relations Category:Pakistan–Yemen relations * Category:Yemeni Crisis (2011–present) Category:Ongoing conflicts Category:United Arab Emirates–Yemen relations Category:War in Yemen Category:Yemen Category:War in Africa Category:Third party military intervention Category:US regime change Category:US proxy regime change